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Kindle Store should provide DRMless PDF and ePUB as options—and a Bezos statement might offer hope
December 11, 2008 | 5:52 am
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By Joe Wikert
“The Kindle is DRM agnostic.”
Jeff Bezos supposedly said that, according to this Medialoper post.
Keep in mind that he’s CEO of Amazon, and that the company that has built a pretty solid DRM fortress around the Kindle—at least for Kindle content you buy from Amazon.
As paraphrased, Bezos reportedly goes on to say that “publishers have the option of selling DRM-free eBooks for the Kindle and that he believes publishers might do just that once they become comfortable with the idea of digital content distribution.”
Tightly wrapped in DRM
Every Kindle product you buy off Amazon’s site today comes tightly wrapped in DRM. I wonder how many people realize you can get DRM-free content for the Kindle from a variety of non-Amazon sources, including some well-known publishers.
For example, my employer, O’Reilly Media, Inc., has been selling DRM-free ebook bundles since earlier this year. These bundles allow you to get all the popular formats in one transaction, at one very reasonable price.
You say you’d like to buy the PDF version of a book but would also like to have one that looks nice on your Kindle? No problem, and we throw in ePub format for good measure (at no additional charge). Good luck getting all those options from Amazon.
Why not DRMless PDF and ePub options?
So if Bezos really feels Amazon should be more open and customer-friendly, why not offer the same model we do at O’Reilly?
Wouldn’t it be great if the next time you bought a title for your Kindle it also included the PDF and ePub versions, all without DRM? Let’s take it up a notch, in fact. The next time you buy a print book from Amazon, why shouldn’t that purchase include DRM versions of all these e-formats as well?
I hope Bezos realizes there are a number of publishers out there like O’Reilly who are already quite comfortable with the idea of digital content distribution. Now we need to eliminate DRM and come up with new, interesting distribution and pricing models to helps expand our industry, not sit around complaining about how the old model is drying up.
Technorati Tags: Jeff Bezos
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Comments:
Remember that Fictionwise is even more “DRM agnostic” than that—they release a significant number of “multiformat” DRMless books.
But there are still a number of publishers who hold out for DRM.
Maybe between Bezos and the Pendergrasts, they’ll eventually be brought around—but I’m not holding my breath.
Heck, Chris, no miracles expected. But marketplace pressures could work against publishers who insist on DRM. Over at Fictionwise, as I recall, nonDRMed content is more popular.
I’d welcome further thoughts on this directly from Steve or Scott P.
On DRM questions, they’re among my heroes despite the challenges of using even “gentle” DRM like the kind in eReader. They’ve at least tried to get publishers to stop the foolishness. Bezos ideally will do the same rather than simply making informal statements. The message needs to come through loud and clear: Amazon prefers that books not carry “protection.” An educational campaign would be in order.
Thanks,
David
We should be encouraging more DRM on the Kindle. No. seriously. see my comment here –>
http://indexmb.com/book-publishers-need-to-back-sony-the-way-the-music-labels-have-backed-amazon/
There are DRM-free Kindle ebooks sold by Amazon. One example is “A Canticle For Leibowitz in Extra Large Print (Kindle Edition)”. The large print part is actually a disadvantage (the 3 standard largest font sizes are 1-3, instead of 4-6, with fonts 3-6 being identical).
My copy has no DRM, but this isn’t advertised on Amazon. I discovered it when looking into the “large print” issue.